A Boston doctor who used an EpiPen on himself after having the first allergic reaction to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine expresses his experience.
Within moments of receiving the first dose of the vaccine on Thursday, Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh of Boston Medical Center said his heart started racing. He initially thought it was anxiety, he said, but then felt his tongue and throat tingle and begin to become deaf.
“My blood pressure was really lower, so that was the time I knew it was anaphylactic shock,” Sadrzadeh told NBC10 Boston and NECN. “My heart rate is higher, I sweat, so my blood pressure is really lower. I already had it, so I had my EpiPen and I administered it myself.”
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Sadrzadeh, who has a severe shellfish allergy, was taken to the emergency department after receiving the shot containing the company’s vaccine in Cambridge. He felt normal again by Friday, he said.
According to The New York Times, Sadrzadeh is the first person to have had an allergic reaction to Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine. It is also known in rare cases that other vaccines currently in use can cause allergic reactions. According to the state’s new dashboard, more than 35,000 people received the vaccine in Massachusetts as of Tuesday.
Sadrzadeh hopes his story will raise awareness about the potential of the vaccine to cause anaphylaxis, among drug companies and anyone with allergies.
“I think people need to be vaccinated,” Sadrzadeh said. “At the same time, I really want Moderna and also Pfizer to investigate it more to prevent things from happening.”
U.S. health officials say the vaccines against Modera and Pfizer’s coronavirus are safe, and medical experts agree that allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, but they can sometimes occur.
Thousands of additional doses of the Modern Coronavirus vaccine began arriving in Massachusetts on Tuesday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that, “If you have ever had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine … you should not get the specific vaccine. “If you have had a severe allergic reaction to other vaccines or injectable therapies, ask your doctor if you should get a COVID-19 vaccine. Your doctor will help you decide if it is safe to be vaccinated.”
Just over 1 million people in the U.S. received their first dose of coronavirus vaccine from Wednesday morning, according to the CDC, and only a handful of reactions to it qualified as anaphylaxis, a serious and potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.
British officials are investigating reports that two people who received the Pfizer vaccine had allergic reactions. Medical experts believe that reactions are rare, but that they are not yet as good for vaccinations of any kind and that they are usually short-lived.
It is unclear why some people experience allergic reactions after receiving the shots. Fatigue, headaches and muscle aches are the most common side effects of Moderna’s vaccine, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
A study led by a team at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases investigated the reasons why some people suffer from severe allergic reactions and is expected to include hundreds of people who have a history of severe allergic reactions has.
Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine began arriving in Massachusetts on Tuesday as part of a shipment of more than 116,000 doses. The delivery added 59,475 doses of Pfizer that were distributed in the state in the first week they arrived. Of these, Boston Medical Center received its first shipment of 75,000 doses of Moderna vaccine in addition to the 2,000 doses of Pfizer, which they have already administered to staff and patients.